Oracle Blog

Monday Oct 01, 2007

I've been following
Mark Ecko's on-line poll about the disposition of
Barry Bonds' 756th home run ball with significant interest. If baseball
is the fan's sport, then the fans should have some say in how the
much-discussed record-breaking home run ball is displayed in
Cooperstown (if at all). It will be one of the only votes the fans get, as
the plaques lining those hallowed halls are officially decided by
baseball writers, not decidedly baseball official fans.

I voted for stamping the ball with an asterisk
for a very simple reason: it's how changes in the rules or the
game have always been noted in the record books. Why not
affix one to the most-challenged accomplishment in the last
decade? Roger Maris has a star next to his 61 home runs,
signifying a change in the number of games played in a season.
There are footnotes and indices aplenty noting the lack of
a World Series in strike-shortened 1994. Turns out I'm not the
only one; about 47% of the votes Ecko collected were for
branding the ball, and that's how it will make the trip to
New York State.

Defacing the ball also stimulates inspection of exactly what
rules were defaced: the ignorance of steroids in the game,
the refusal of record-holders to come clean about their
intentional or (supposedly) accidental use of performance
enhancing substances. Several writers have argued that
with even chemical boosters, Bonds, McGuire and Sosa all had
to launch their own rockets over the fences. If they got
an edge outside of the enforced rules of the game, then
it's fair to assume pitchers had the same edge, and an edge
is an edge, whether it's a longer season or bigger muscles.
For me the argument comes down to respect for the
game; the discussion to have with young athletes is
about sportsmanship. Records broken with out of band
assistance are as ugly to me as hockey tournaments won
by teams dropping a band to handily beat weaker
opponents. There are physical reminders of the
accomplishment, but mental questions about the
path traveled to reach them.

When young fans walk by the ball in the Hall of Fame, and
see the Mark of Ecko, I hope they'll question how it came
to be there and look at their own views of the game. Only
through the inspection of each generation can baseball
recover its integrity and the respect of the fans.